During the four centuries of Ottoman domination in the Balkans,
many Christian warriors found refuge and served in the armed forces of the
surrounding Christian powers. In Central Europe, Grenzer regiments
composed of South Slavs provided the backbone of the border defenses in the
Habsburg crownlands, while in Dalmatia the South Slavic Schiavoni, Oltramarini, and
Croati a Cavallo units served the Venetian Republic.
[1] Likewise, military companies of Greeks and Christian Albanians served Venice
and Spain in the Balkans and Italy. During the Turco-Venetian wars of the
fifteenth century, large numbers of soldiers who had served the last Christian
states in the Balkans found employment in the Venetian holdings in Greece and
Dalmatia. Known as stradioti (from the Byzantine term stratiōtēs, meaning
soldier or wayfarer), these troops were light cavalrymen who used the spear,
long saber, and mace as weapons and were attired in a mixture of oriental and
Byzantine martial garb. [2]

Throughout the sixteenth century stradioti served in the
armies of Venice, Genoa, France, England, and the Holy Roman Empire. A number of
contemporary memoirists and historians described the activities of the stradioti in Western Europe and have attributed the reintroduction of light
cavalry tactics to them. As their clients began forming native light cavalry
units, such as the later hussars and dragoons, the employment opportunities of
the stradioti became limited to Italy and the Near East. They continued
to be garrisoned in the Levant and took part in

35

36

the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century wars against the Ottomans.
Their main stations of service were the Venetian-held areas of Nauplion, Korone,
Methone, and Monemvasia in the Peloponnesus; such towns as Trogir, Šibenik,
Herceg Novi, and Zadar in Dalmatia; and the island possessions in the Ionian and
Aegean seas. [3]

Naples, under both the Spanish Habsburgs and the Bourbons,
remained another center of military activity and colonization for Balkan peoples
abroad. In the fifteenth century, large numbers of Christian Albanians, refugees
from Skenderbeg’s wars, were settled in Calabria and Sicily, and in both the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, many Greek and Albanian stradioti and
their families from the Peloponnesus settled in Neapolitan lands. Later refugees
from the autonomous warrior communities of Cheimarra and Mani formed colonies in
Apulia and elsewhere. Most of these settlements had military privileges and
responsibilities, but by the eighteenth century these conventions had fallen
into decline. [4]

As they became hereditary units, the military prowess of these
older stradioti companies declined, but in the eighteenth century new
military institutions arose which prolonged the tradition of Balkan legions in
Venice and Naples. The two major formations comprised of Balkan troops were the
Venetian Reggimento Cimarrioto and the Neapolitan Reggimento Real
Macedone. The Reggimento Cimarrioto was organized during the Candian
and Morean wars by the Venetians, while the Reggimento Real Macedone was
formed soon after the founding of the independent Kingdom of Naples in 1734.

These new troops were armed in what was known as the “Albanian”
manner. Their chief firearm was a long musket known as a toupheki, or karyophyli. A set of pistols supplemented the rifle, and a powder case (patrona)
with shot (phousekia) was carried for all firearms. Hand weapons included
a sword, either a large oriental saber known as a yatagan or a
traditional Balkan long-knife of archaic style known as a pala, which had
a shape similar to a gurhka knife. These arms were complemented by a least one
dagger. [5] The distinctive costume of these troops consisted of a white pleated
kilt (phoustanella) or a long, dark colored tunic (phermelē ),
long stockings (kaltses), moccasins (tsarouchia), and a shepherd’s
cloak (kapa). This attire was based upon peasant dress and was decorated
with embroidery and silvered arms, symbols of the warrior’s

37

profession. Because of their long tunics or kilts, those troops
in Neapolitan service were nicknamed camiciotti by Italians. [6]

Like the klephtes and hajduks, these Balkan troops
practiced a style of fighting which entailed swift movements, sharpshooting, and
hand-to-hand fighting. Ambushes and skirmishes were the rule in their combat,
and due to their ability as marksmen, the Balkan recruits were often used as
marine riflemen in naval campaigns. [7]

The area of Cheimarra (Himarë) provided the bulk of the manpower
for the Reggimento Cimarrioto and a major component of the Reggimento
Real Macedone. [8] Like Mani, Montenegro, and Souli, Cheimarra was one of
those Balkan regions whose inhabitants were able to maintain their self-rule by
virtue of their tribal or clan organization, the inaccessibility of their
mountainous homelands, their proximity to Venetian controlled areas, and the
prowess of their arms. Located along the coastal promontories of the
Acroceraunian mountains between Agia Saranta (Sarandë) and Aviona (Vlorë) in
present-day southern Albania, the warrior society known as Cheimarra arose
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Initially this group of about
fifty villages was a center of resistance to Ottoman conquest during the wars of
Skenderbeg. It became a refuge not only for remnants of Skenderbeg’s forces
under his son John Kastriotes, but also for Peloponnesian Greeks and Albanians
under Korkodeilos Kladas in the 1470s. [9] In the ensuing years Cheimarra
participated in the wars of Venice and of other western powers against the
Porte.

In 1537 the Ottomans mounted an expedition that destroyed or
captured many of the villages of Cheimarra, but did not totally subdue the area.
Indeed, the victors found it necessary to compromise with the inhabitants of
Cheimarra by granting them the following privileges: local self-government,
local administration of justice, the right to bear arms, and exemption from the
home and dzizije (“head tax”) in exchange for a yearly tribute. These
conditions were negotiated in 1519 through the offices of Liaz (Elias) Pasha, an
Islamized local figure representing Sultan Selim I. [10] When renewed during the
sultanates of Murad IV and Suleiman II, these conventions were modified to
provide that the Cheimarriotes render service in time of war and to expend the
maritime privileges of Cheimarra.

38

In spite of these privileges, the Cheimarriotes rose against
Ottoman authority on a number of occasions, notably during the third
Turco-Venetian War (1537-40), the War of the Holy League (1571), and the Morean
Wars (1684). Ottoman reprisals somewhat depopulated the region and led to a
certain amount of forced Islamization which, coupled with voluntary conversions
to Islam, limited the area's Christian population by the eighteenth century to
the town of Cheimarra and six other large villages. [11] Despite the diminution
of its size, the community of Cheimarra retained its privileges into the
twentieth century, although these were often violated by local Muslim officials.

In the meantime, the strategic position of Cheimarra near the
Straits of Otranto (separating Italy from the Balkans and the Adriatic from the
Ionian Sea), along with its proximity to Italy (100 kilometers from Apuglia) and
to Venice’s Ionian possessions (35 kilometers from Corfu), had attracted the
interest of the Venetian Republic and the Kingdom of Spain (later Naples). These
powers saw strategic advantage in the preservation of Cheimarra’s autonomy and
the maintainance of their influence in the region. Through the use of trade,
military aid, arms shipments, missionaries, and agents, Venice and Naples
derived, in turn, two important assets from Cheimarra. Besides its uprisings
during the western powers' wars against the Ottoman Empire, Cheimarra provided
soldiers for the armies of Venice and Naples. During the earlier centuries of
Ottoman rule, it had been a recruiting ground for stradioti, whereas by
the eighteenth century it was supplying the aforementioned light-infantry bodies
for Naples and Venice. [12]

Following the 1685 uprising, many Cheimarriotes joined Venetian
ranks and were later organized into a two-thousand man Reggimento Cimarrioto.
This regiment distinguished itself in the last years of the Morean wars, and in
the ensuing years of peace its companies were deployed in the Ionian Islands and
other garrisons in the Levant. The regiment was mustered in full only for
infrequent inspections by Venetian authorities. [13]

The gross irregularities that plagued the ReggimentoCimarrioto are evidence that the Venetians and the Neapolitans were rivals
in the recruitment of the Cheimarriotes. In an inspection of the fortress at
Corfu in 1745, Venetian officials found that the two companies of the ReggimentoCimarrioto serving in the Corfiote garrison were absent
en masse.

39

Two of their officers, a Major Bitsilēs and a Captain Polimeros,
were present only to collect pay for their troops. The bulk of the soldiers were
in Cheimarra and received their pay there. Some, indeed, were collecting pay
from both the Venetian Republic and the Kingdom of Naples, as they were also in
active duty with the Reggimento Real Macedone. [14]

This latter unit had its antecedents in a military unit founded
soon after the Neapolitan kingdom became independent under its own branch of the
house of Bourbon. Initial organization and recruitment were directed by
Athanasios Glykēs, an Epirote merchant living in Naples, and Count Stratēs
Gkikas, a veteran stradioto from Cheimarra in Neapolitan service. In 1735
these two men organized a small unit of troops, no doubt Cheimarriotes, for
service as guards for King Carlos. This unit had increased to battalion size by
1738, but in that same year problems erupted within the ranks, supposedly due to
the intrigues of Venetian agents. The Venetian interference was probably a
consequence of the recruitment competition mentioned above. [15]

As a result of this discord, the Neapolitan unit was reorganized
under a new command in 1739. The new commander was the Cephalonian Count
Geōrgios Choraphas, a former officer in the Venetian army. Under his leadership,
the battalion-sized unit was eventually expanded into a full regiment that, in
1754, comprised two battalions of thirteen companies each. The initial
commander, Stratēs Gkikas, had the rank of lieutenant colonel and was second in
command. This organization, known as the Reggimento Real Macedone,
remained basically intact until the 1790s. [16] Choraphas exercised command over
the regiment until 1775, when he died with the rank of lieutenant general.
Stratēs Gkikas succeeded him as regimental leader until his death in 1784 when
he, in turn, was provisionally replaced by a Colonel Vlasēs. Soon afterward,
Athanasios Gkikas, the son of Strates, assumed command and led the regiment
until the eve of the French invasion of Italy in 1798. [17]

Thè Reggimento Real Macedone was one of the most highly
regarded units in the Neapolitan army. [18] The record of the regiment and its
later sister units was, according to their historians, quite distinguished. In
the War of the Austrian Succession the regiment acquitted itself well against
Habsburg forces, taking over four hundred of the enemy prisoner. It continued
campaigning in 1745 and 1746 with other Neapolitan regiments that were
consolidated into a Macedonian brigade in the regiment’s

40

honor. Although its men were taken prisoner as a result of the
general defeat of Neapolitan forces, the regiment maintained one of the best
reputations in the campaign. [19]

Later, detachments from the Reggimento Real Macedone
served as marines aboard vessels of the Neapolitan navy in expeditions against
the Barbary pirates. Since marine service then entailed sniping from atop the
rigging against the crews of enemy warships, as well as amphibious operations,
the troops of the regiment, with their renowned marksmanship, were well suited
for this duty. The Tripolitanian operations of the 1750s, for example, found
over three hundred of the regiment’s men involved in marine service.
[20]

In peacetime, the Macedonian troops were often used in the
suppression of brigandage and uprisings in southern Italy and Sicily. Their mode
of fighting, being similar to that employed by the bandits of the Balkans, made
them ideal for dealing with Italian outlaws, while their foreign origin kept
them aloof from any local sympathies in the quelling of insurrections.
[21]

In 1793 the advent of revolutionary France as a threat to the
European status quo marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the
regiment. The Kingdom of Naples joined England and other allies in an attempt to
stifle the burgeoning power of France, employing one battalion of the Macedonian
regiment as marines in an abortive expedition against the French at Toulon.
[22]
As the French military involvement in Italy grew in the 1790s, there were moves
to augment the regiment with new units.

In 1786, the eve of a new recruiting effort in Epirus under the
officer Kōnstantinos Kasnetsēs, the regiment had a numerical strength of 2,012
officers and men. [23] After the Toulon campaign, recruits appeared in such
numbers that it was necessary to form a second regiment, which together with the
original Reggimento Real Macedone was consolidated into a new,
homogeneous Macedonian brigade (Brigata Macedone) under the command of
Prince Ludwig Adolf of Saxony. [24] In 1797-98, when the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was desperate for troops in the face of an impending French invasion,
another active recruitment campaign in Epirus mustered a new six hundred-man
force. This unit was organized into the Battaglione dei Cacciatori Albanesi
under the command of Kōnstantinos Kasnetsēs, who was chiefly responsible for its
recruitment. [25]

41

In the 1798 campaign against the French in the Papal States, the
Brigata Macedone and the Battaglione dei Cacciatori Albanesi took
part in the actions in and around Rome. In battles and skirmishes at
Civita-Castellana, Caiazzo, San Giovanni Laterano, and Capua, the two Balkan
forces put up a resistance to French forces which was more effective than that
of the other Neapolitan units and thus distinguished themselves in an otherwise
disgraceful campaign. [26]

Following the defeat of Naples’s forces at the hands of the
French, the Balkan units were the main contributors to the two-day defence of
Fort Carmine and other sections of Naples. The Battaglione dei Cacciatori
Albanesi and elements of the Brigata Macedone were eventually holed
up in the Carmine fortress and negotiated a surrender. This agreement was not
respected by the French, who held the troops prisoner in the San Francesco
prison and gave them small rations. The imprisoned troops received necessary
foodstuffs from Greek merchants and Neapolitans. [27] While the troops of the
Battaglione dei Cacciatori Albanesi remained prisoners of war, the two
Macedonian regiments were disbanded. Their personnel either scattered to the
homes of friends and to the neighboring islands of Procida and Ischia, or
returned to their homelands by obtaining passports under assumed names from the
Ottoman consul. [28] Under the short-lived Republic of Naples, some Balkan
officers entered the service of the French and two of them attained the rank of
brigadier general. [29]

Within six months of the French victory, the Neapolitan republic
fell and the kingdom was restored by Anglo-Russian forces and the military
movement of Cardinal Ruffo. Two reconstituted units were formed under the titles
Battaglione dei Cacciatori Macedoni and Reggimento Albania. With
the return of the French in 1805, these units were transferred to Sicily and
served together with allied forces in the exile army of the Neapolitan kingdom.
[30] These diminished forces were maintained on Sicily until 1812, when both
were discharged. A number of officers accepted positions in other military units
or assumed Neapolitan consular or intelligence posts in the Levant.
[31]

After a five-year hiatus the tradition of Macedonian forces was
revived in 1817 by Lieutenant General Richard Church, military commander of
Apulia. Previous to his accepting a Neapolitan commission, Church had seen
service as an English officer in Egypt, Italy, and the Ionian Islands.

42

He had acquired the reputation of being an expert at training and
commanding foreign troops in British service. In 1805 he made a study of the
military uses of Calabrian brigands, and from 1805 to 1808 he led a unit of
Corsican Rangers on reconnaissance missions in French-occupied Italy. From 1809
to 1814, he was organizer and a commander of the Duke of York’s two Greek Light
Infantry Regiments on the Ionian Islands. [32]

Following the defeat of Napoleon, the Greek regiments were
dissolved and Church transferred to the Kingdom of Naples. As military governor
of Apulia, he was able to organize a new Battaglione dei Cacciatori Macedoni
that included not only veterans of the old Neapolitan units but also former
members of the Ionian Islands regiments. [33] This battalion participated
actively in Church’s internal campaigns against brigandage and popular uprisings
until June 1820, when it was disbanded after less than three years of service.
This was the last Balkan unit to serve the Kingdom of Naples. [34]

In the eighty odd years during which Naples employed light
infantry from the Balkans, the troops of the regiment and its successors were
known popularly under three names in addition to the aforementioned camiciotti: the seemingly national names of
Greci, Albanesi,
and Macedoni. These names did not, however, have their later ethnic
connotations but were instead stylized terms that described the soldiers’
general origins or mode of fighting. The term Greci was religious,
denoting Orthodox faith and not necessarily Greek nationality. The term Albanesi was used because that nation had achieved fame for its style of
fighting as mercenaries of the Ottoman Empire. Muslim Albanians had become a
mainstay of the sultan’s armies and were given the nickname "the Swiss of the
Near East” by Europeans. The third epithet, Macedoni, which was used in
the title of the regiment, indicated not only inhabitants of the area of
Macedonia (as understood in either ancient or modem terms) but also applied to
all peoples living in the areas once under the sway of Alexander the Great. This
usage in effect made virtually all of the Balkan peninsula, as well as the Near
East, a potential recruiting ground for these troops. [35]

Recruiting records from the 1740s and 1750s indicate that Naples
levied men for the Reggimento Real Macedone from such distant centers as
Tinos, Dubrovnik, Smyrna, Constantinople, Messolongi, Mani, the

43

Peloponnesus, and Montenegro. [36] Another source cites
recruitments from the Peloponnesus and the islands of the Aegean and Ionian
Seas. [37]

Recruitment among the South Slavs caused friction with the
Venetian Republic. Venetian authorities maintained intelligence on the
recruiting activities of agents and officers from Naples, not only among
Venetian subjects in Dalmatia, but also among Montenegrins and other Turkish
subjects. [38] They attempted to restrict the Neapolitan recruitment activities
in Dalmatia and Montenegro (along with Cheimarra) because these areas were also
recruiting grounds for Venetian schiavoni, morlachi, and Cimarrioti troops.
[39] Recruitment of South Slavs for the Macedonian
regiment continued nonetheless, particularly among Serbs from Montenegro, Bocca
di Cattaro, and Paštrovići. [40]

In the 1760s, a dispute concerning the South Slavic troops arose
between the Neapolitan general staff and the commander of the regiment, Geōrgios
Choraphas. The polemic was over whether “Illyrians” (Slavs) could serve in the
Reggimento Real Macedone along with “Greeks” (Greeks and Christian
Albanians). At various inspections the regiment had been found to include
categories of men which had been excluded by the recruitment agreements of 1739
and 1754—agreements that forbade the levying of troops from areas of the
Venetian Republic. [41] These strictures had been violated both with regard to
the Cheimarriotes serving on the Ionian Islands (1740s) and the Serbs in
Venetian-held Bocca. [42] In addition, it was found that a number of former
Grenzer troops from Austrian service had been serving in the Reggimento
Real Macedone since the 1740s. Initially these men were deserters from the
Habsburg army that fought against Naples in the War of the Austrian Succession.
Between 1744 and 1768 these troops numbered between 50 and 200 of the regiment’s
men. [43]

There were instances when Italians joined the regiment, as well.
One attraction was that the pay of the camiciotti was considerably higher
than that of other units in the Neapolitan army, although the former troops had
to provide their own uniforms, accouterments, and weapons. [44] According to an
English observer, the pay of Macedonians was twice that of Italian troops.
[45]

The inclusion of troops in the Macedonian regiment from areas not
included in its recruitment regulations was basically a jurisdictional problem.
The commander of the regiment, in defending his recruitment policies,

44

used not only jurisdictional evidence, but also cited historical
and ethnic reasons for maintaining the “Illyrian” troops. Colonel Choraphas
argued in favor of their inclusion on the historical grounds that their
homelands had been in Alexander the Great’s realm. Although this argument is
tendentious in light of modern scholarship, it was persuasive in a period when
ancient claims still took historical precedence. [46]

More significant were the points that Choraphas made regarding
the ethnic composition of the regiment. He distinguished the troops of the
regiment by their native language and area, calling them Illyrians and Greeks.
Among troops of these two “nations” he made regional distinctions but affirmed
their attachment to their respective “nations.” He thus considered Dalmatian,
Montenegrin, and Grenzer troops generically Illyrians, and argued for
their inclusion in the regiment on these grounds. Also, he emphasized that in
religion, customs, dress, and modes of fighting “the Illyrians were related to
the Greeks.” [47]

Colonel Choraphas also cited language as a criterion for
maintaining Illyrians in the regiment. He recounted the case of an Italian,
Giovanni Bonifacio, who was allowed to remain in the regiment because he knew
the Greek and Illyrian languages. [48] This precedent indicates that the
commander considered language a basic prerequisite for service in the regiment.
It also implies that a certain number of men, probably commissioned and
noncommissioned officers, were obliged to know both Greek and Serbo-Croatian and
that bilingualism or even multilingualism (if one includes Italian or Albanian)
existed in the regiment. It is clear that Choraphas’s view regarding the
Illyrians prevailed, for South Slavs served in the Reggimento Real Macedone
and its successors into the nineteenth century, as is seen by a number of Serb
and Croat officers and men cited for distinguished service. [49]

Cheimarra remained the chief source for the manpower needs of the
regiment, over and above other regions, as is evidenced by the great number of
officers from notable Cheimarriote families such as: Andrōutses, Dōules, Gkikas,
Gkinēs, Kōstas, Lekas, Mēlios, Panos, Vlasēs, and Zachos, as well as other
sources listed below. [50] This participation was no doubt due to Cheimarra’s
proximity to the Neapolitan state and to the special relations maintained
between them over the years.

An indication of the extent to which Cheimarriotes served the
Macedonian regiment and its successors is given in the account of William Leake,

45

who traveled to Cheimarra in 1805. There he found about one
hundred veterans of Neapolitan service living on pensions, several soldiers on
leave, and three or four officers recruiting their countrymen for service in
Naples. [51]

Since Cheimarra has been part of the disputed border region of
Greece and Albania in this century, the question of the nationality of the
Cheimarriotes has prompted much discussion. From a linguistic standpoint, the
issue is not clear, but there is some trend toward the Greek language. William
Leake observed in 1805 that the male population of Cheimarra spoke Greek as well
as Albanian, while most women spoke only the latter language. This observation,
if correct, would indicate that Hellenization had occurred either as a result of
their mercenary service with Greek speakers or through the work of a school that
had operated in Cheimarra since the seventeenth century. A number of scholars,
however, maintain that Greek is the autochthonous language of the area, some
claiming that the dialect spoken there is akin to the Greek of the southern
Peloponnesus or to that of the Greek-speaking villages of Apulia in southern
Italy. [52] In an ethnological gazetteer of 1857, a Greek author claimed that
both Greek and Albanian were spoken in all of the villages of Cheimarra. An
Italian scholar, who visited the area at the turn of this century, observed that
five of the seven villages were bilingual and commented that the population,
although of “pure Albanian origin,” was of Greek sentiment. [53] A German
geographer and a British archeologist, who both visited Cheimarra in the
interwar period, came to the conclusion that most of the area’s villages were
Greek-speaking. [54] Finally, a Soviet study of the Albanian language and its
dialects published in 1968 reported that three of the seven villages, including
the town of Cheimarra, were wholly Greek-speaking but “considered themselves
Albanians.” [55]

Leaving conflicting linguistic evidence aside and using the modem
criteria of nationality, one cannot label the Cheimarriotes as either Greeks or
Albanians. In a narrow sense their allegiances were to their respective clans
and areas, and in a broader sense to their religious and cultural heritage. This
latter allegiance to Orthodox Christianity would seem to indicate closer ties to
their Greek coreligionists than to the Muslim Albanians. [56] These ties are
seen in the participation of many Cheimarriotes, including a number of veterans
of Neapolitan service, in the Greek War

46

of Independence. Their contributions in that conflict, although
less well known, can be compared to those of the Souliotes on land and the
Hydriotes and Spetsiotes at sea. These people, like the Cheimarriotes, were
known to be Albanian-speaking or bilingual, yet they identified themselves
wholly with the Greek national cause. [57]

In the decade following the disbandment of Naples’s last
Macedonian military formation, Cheimarriote veterans played a significant role
in the Greek War of Independence, 1821-1830. Among those who became officers in
the Greek insurrectionary forces were: Lt. General Kostas Kaznezēs, Chieftain
Giannēs Kōstas, Colonel Nikolaos Mēlios, General Spyros Mēlios (Spyromēlios),
Colonel Zachos Mēlios, Lt. General Chrēstos Mpekas, Colonel Georgios Mpenas,
Major P. Strakēs, Major Chrēstos Varphēs, and Lt. Colonel Spyros Varphēs.
[58]
The most notable of these officers was General Spyromēlios. In the course of
more than fifty years he served in the Light Infantry Battalions of the Greek
state, as the commandant of the National Military Academy, and had a political
career first as minister of war and then as both deputy and president of the
parliament. [59]

Aside from these and other chieftains, many Cheimarriotes came to
fight in insurgent Greece via Hellenic committees on the Ionian Islands.
[60]
They served both in several Epirote corps and in units made up of Cheimarriotes
alone. One Cheimarriote unit of 250 men under the Mēlios brothers participated
in the famed defense and sortie of Messolongi and came out with ten survivors.
[61] Another Cheimarriote unit later served in the last campaigns in West
Central Greece in 1828-29. [62] In addition to these Cheimarriote contributions,
there were other significant ways in which the Reggimento Real Macedone
and its successors had an impact on the development of the Greek movement for
independence.

In the late eighteenth century, the Reggimento Real Macedone
began to be supplanted and overshadowed by new formations recruited and
organized by the major European powers that were becoming involved in the
Mediterranean. In the founding of some of these Russian, French, and British
units, the Neapolitan regiment’s traditional manpower sources were tapped and
its organization used as a paradigm. These later legions provided much of the
rank and file of the Greek War of Independence.

As early as 1759, negotiations between the Cheimarriotes and the
Russian Empire were undertaken for the raising of one to two regiments.
[63]

47

These contacts did not bear fruit, but during the Russo-Turkish
Wars of 1769-74 over three thousand Greeks and Orthodox Albanians served as
marines on the ships of the Russian fleet that operated in the Eastern
Mediterranean after the uprisings in Cheimarra, Mani, and other areas of Greece.
In the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-92, over eight hundred warriors were again
recruited by Russian agents for marine service in the privateer flotillas of
Lampros Katsonēs and Guilielmo Lorenzi. Veterans of both these wars emigrated to
Russia and formed the basis of two regular units in the Southern Ukraine: the Grecheskii pekhotnyi polk (later the
Balaklavskii grecheskii pekhotnyi
batal'on), formed in the Crimea in 1775, and the Odesskii grecheskii
division, founded in Odessa in 1795. [64]

It is significant to note that two of the most active recruiting
agents for these troops had some connection with the older Balkan military units
of Venice and Naples. Major Panos Bitsilēs, the main recruiter in Cheimarra and
later Russian consul in Albania and Cheimarra, was the scion of a well-known
Cheimarriote family that had provided officers for the Reggimento Cimarrioto
of Venice and was the first Cheimarriote clan to offer its services to the
Russian Empire. Another member of this family, Kōnstantinos Bitsilēs, was the
initial commander of the Odesskii grecheskii division. There is evidence
that Panos Bitsēlēs or a later namesake was a member of the secret Greek
revolutionary society, Philikē Hetaireia. [65] The other important
recruiter, Major Ludovikos Sōtērēs, who was instrumental in recruiting many
troops from Epirus and Central Greece during both Russo-Turkish wars, was a
Lefkadian Greek who was a doctor in Naples for a number of years and no doubt
had contact with many members of the Reggimento Real Macedone during his
stay there. This experience, together with his residence in Ioannina, made him
an effective recruiter for Russia. Indicative of his contact with Balkan troops
in Naples is the fact that he called the troops that he recruited Makedones.
[66]

The Napoleonic wars brought about a proliferation of Greek units
serving European powers which included veterans of the Neapolitan armed forces.
During their occupation of the Ionian Islands, the Russians organized units of
Greek mainlanders, either under the sovereignty of the Septinsular Republic (Pichetti
Albanesi, Corpo Macedone), or under direct Russian control (Legion
legkikh Strelkov, Osobyi grecheskiikorpus). [67]

48

During the French occupation of the Ionian Islands, these units
were transformed into Le Régiment Albanaise and Les Chasseurs à pied
Greces. [68] Later, the English, struggling with the French over the Ionian
Islands (1809 to 1814), organized two Greek Light Infantry Regiments from the
earlier Russian and French formations. [69]

All of the above Russian, French, and English formations had some
elements that had previously been in Neapolitan forces. There is evidence that
whole companies transferred their service from Naples to the Septinsular
Republic in the early years of the Russian occupation. For example, there was a
Major Stratēs Gkikas, probably a descendant of one of the founders of the Reggimento Real Macedone, commanding a company on Zakynthos for the Ionian
Republic in 1802. This company still bore the nomenclature of its former
Neapolitan service, being the first company of the Macedonian regiment (Reggimento
Macedonia - Piedalista - Prima Compagnia). [70] Major Gkikas later held a
commission in the Russian Legion legkikh Strelkov and was subsequently an
officer in French and British service as well. During the Greek War of
Independence, he served as an officer in the revolutionary forces of Western
Greece. [71]

Another individual from the Neapolitan officer corps was
Kōnstantios Androutsēs, who entered the service of the French during their
occupation of Naples in 1799. He acted as commander and instructor of one of the
Neapolitan Republic’s civic guard regiments in that year, but the allied
restoration of the Kingdom of Naples forced him to return clandestinely to his
homeland of Cheimarra. He remained in Cheimarra until 1806, when he was assigned
by the French to scout out the Russian Legion legkikh Strelkov and to
recruit Cheimarriotes and others for French service instead. While on this
mission on Corfu, he was arrested and imprisoned by Septinsular authorities in
November 1806 for pro-French activities, but was able to escape to Cheimarra.
With the cession of the Ionian Islands to the French he was given the command of
one of the battalions, of the Régiment Albanaise. He later became native
adjutant commander of the regiment with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
[72]

The English, in organizing the Duke of York’s Greek Light
Infantry, recruited not only from among those men who had served in previous
Russian and French sponsored organizations, but also from the veterans of the Reggimento Real Macedone.
[73] Indeed, each of the three powers

49

maintained a section of the Greek regiments with Cheimarriotes,
many of whom were no doubt Neapolitan veterans. The Russians, in their Legion
legkikh Strelkov, had a Cheimarriote legion of four companies on Corfu,
while the French later had a battalion of six Cheimarriote companies in the Régiment Albanaise.
[74]

In the initial organization of these units, the precedent of the
Reggimento Real Macedone was kept in mind. In 1802, when the Septinsular
Republic institutionalized the irregular Pichetti Albanesi (“Albanian
detachments”) into a single unit, the named the five hundred-man unit the Corpo Macedone. Among the officers and men of the corps who later served in
the Greek War of Independence were: Georgakes Grivas, Velisarios Kalogeros,
Giannes Kavadias, and Theodoros Grivas. [75]

It is also evident that the founding of the Legion legkikh
Strelkov was effected by the Reggimento Real Macedone, since the
first men to offer their services to the Russians on the Ionian Islands in 1804
were Cheimarriotes, who wanted conditions of service similar to those they had
enjoyed in Neapolitan service. [76] likewise, the French, one year before the
organizing of the Régiment Albanaise, had considered the feasibility of
raising a new Reggimento Real Macedone for the French sponsored Kingdom
of Naples, ruled by Joseph Murat. [77] There is also little doubt that Richard
Church had encountered Macedonian troops in Italy before he had organized the
Greek Light Infantry on the Ionian Islands.

After the defeat of Napoleon and the cession of the Ionian
Islands to England, the Duke of York’s Greek Light Infantry Regiments were fully
disbanded in 1817. Some of the discharged warriors were able to find service in
the Battaglione dei Cacciatori Macedone with their old commander, Richard
Church, and there is evidence that he recruited from among his most trusted
officers. [78] Others went to Russia and sought patents of commission for
service with the tsar, but were turned down. Russian Foreign Minister Iōannēs
Kapodistrias, who knew these troops well from his service in the Septinsular
Republic, feared that their unemployment would lead them into the ranks of the
secret Greek revolutionary society, Philikē Hetaireia. He attempted,
through letters to the Neapolitan ambassador in St. Petersburg, to persuade the
king of Naples to reactivate the Reggimento Real Macedone with the bulk
of these Ionian veterans as its rank and file. His efforts did not produce the
expected

50

results and the Neapolitan Balkan forces were limited to the one
battalion under Richard Church. [79]

Those officers that had gone to Russia (Anagnostēs Papageorgiou,
Elias Chrysospathēs, Christophoros Perraivos, and others) did join the Philikē Hetaireia and became among its most active members, initiating their
former comrades-in-arms from service in the Ionian Islands. [80] The leadership
of the Philikē Hetaireia had taken the Neapolitan forces into account in
its plans for the Greek struggle. It was planned that Christophoros Priniarēs, a
member residing in Italy, would arrange for the recruitment and transport of the
Macedonian troops to Sparta. [81]

Although this particular plan was never realized, a number of
veterans of the last Battaglione dei Cacciatori Macedoni, including
Souliotes and others, were involved in the rebellion of Ali Pasha in 1820-21 and
later made their marks in the Greek campaigns in Central Greece. [82]

Besides these Cheimarriotes and other former soldiers of
Neapolitan service who participated in the Greek War of Independence, the
members of those Ionian formations that rivaled the Reggimento Real Macedone
in its last years constituted a significant part of the forces of independent
Greece. [83]

The legacy of the Reggimento Real Macedone and its
successors was of two-fold importance for the development of modern Greece. The
units provided an important number of trained officers and seasoned troops for
the forces of the Greek Revolution. Indirectly, the Neapolitan formations acted
as models and as recruiting grounds for later Russian, French, and English units
on the Ionian Islands that likewise provided an even greater number of
chieftains and soldiers for independent Greece.

This study, based upon published sources, has only briefly
recounted the history of the Balkan forces of the Kingdom of Naples and their
impact upon the formation of their foreign counterparts and upon the Greek
national movement. It has also touched upon the ethnic and regional composition
of these units. Nevertheless, these and other subjects need further systematic
study, using available archival materials in Italy and elsewhere. Investigation
into the recruitment policies and the internal

51

organization of Naples’s Balkan legions, along with their
relation to Venetian and Russian rivals, may provide further insights into the
development of Balkan military institutions in the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries.

NOTES

1. Two important studies of Austrian units in English are Gunther
E. Rothenberg’s The Austrian Military Border in Croatia: 1522-1747
(Urbana, Illinois, 1960), and The Military Border in Croatia, 1740-1881
(Chicago, 1966).

49. Lehasca, pp. 38-39. In addition, a list of 41 veterans who
received last rites in the Greek church in Palermo, Sicily, indicates that two
were South Slavs — Jovan Gravic (ex Illyrico delle Boche di Cattaro) in
1810, and Jovan Markovic (Illyricus Dalmatinus). Sciambra, p. 104.

E. M. Church, pp. 17-20; “Copy of Extracts from any
Correspondence which may have taken place between the commander of forces during
the occupation of Sicily by the British forces and the Home Government, relative

58

to the Attack which led to the Capture and Subsequent Occupation
of the Ionian Islands,” Great Britain, Parliament, House of Commons, Sessional Papers, 1864, vol. 66, no. 3, enclosures 1-15, pp. 1-28;

Nikolaos Pierēs later served in the Greek War of Independence as
a commander of artillery and regular infantry. Roll of Officers not only company
rolls on Zante, n.d., Genika Archeia tou Kratous, Vlachogiannēs Collection,
folio G37, nos. 42-44 (1802);